the dark's not taking prisoners tonight
by milk ghost
Summary: Sam, Chris, Josh, and the strings that tie them all together—no matter the choices. — sam, chris, josh


**notes:** everything hurts and i'm dying.  
 **summary:** sam, chris, josh, and the strings that tie them all together—no matter the choices. [told in no particular order for a reason.]

 _ **x**_

 _ **you blinked and the world was gone**_

 _ **x**_

Chris meets Josh in third grade.

This causes both boys to meet Sam one day when Hannah brings home her New Best Friend.

Boom. Butterfly Effect.

 _ **x**_

They fall like dominoes—one right after the other after the other after the other until the bodies of her friends are just that: bodies. Their faces become unrecognizable, undeniable, but she knows (oh she _knows_ ) exactly who they are and how they died and it hurts. Oh god, it hurts.

Sam. Samantha. Sammy.

Sole survivor.

She can't breathe. Every inhale, exhale is smoke and the inevitable reek of death that seems to haunt her wherever she goes. The flames lick at her ankles and everything just _burns._ Memories reflect like the fire dancing back and forth in the gleam of her eyes. An explosion of feelings, of the Washington's mountain home burning to the ground, within her chest that bleed down into her fingers and make them prickle.

Fire.

Fire is the only thing that can really, truly harm wendigos.

Josh is a wendigo, now.

She wants the fire back.

 ** _x_**

"You guys are _jerks_ ," Sam remarks after Hannah brushes past her. Time moves slowly—her best friend's tears are still suspended in midair, all glistening in the moonlight streaming through the window.

Do not go outside. _Do not go outside._

It was a prank. No one was meant to get hurt.

Isn't that how it always works?

(It's all fun and games until two girls fall off a cliff.)

And suddenly time is moving too fast, too quickly for anyone to really think as Hannah throws open the front door and disappears outside into the cold night. She needs Time, but there's never been any time to spare on such a poor, humiliated girl. Beth follows, because Beth is Furious and she will always take Hannah's side, will always stand up for her twin sister.

Josh is passed out, piss drunk, and he's not waking up.

Hannah goes over the cliff first, and then Beth follows, like she always does. A slip, a fall, and one death.

Fast forward a year.

Who's laughing now?

 ** _x_**

Jessica dies first. She falls down down _down_ a mineshaft and gets torn to shreds by something unbelievable, something monstrous. This is just one of many ways she could have died, did die, another place and another time all on another horrific night up in Blackwood.

No, rewind. Beth dies first.

That's the real heart of the problem, now isn't it?

They never do find the bodies of the Washington sisters. Maybe because there are no corpses to find.

 ** _x_**

Chris thinks he's going to have a breakdown—it's a wonder he hasn't had one tonight, already.

"Chris please don't let me die! _Chris please_!"

Ashley's terrified screams mix with Josh's, and it's like one giant blender of a freak horror show and so this is his portion in life, is it. To choose between the girl he loves and his best friend. His _best friend._ For fuck's sake. He can't decide he can't decide he can't decide.

" _Chris_!" they seem to echo in unison, this time, because the saw blades are moving closer and closer and he doesn't want to see either of them die.

God, he can't—he _can't._ There is a deranged psychopath making him kill one of his friends and he just _can't. Think. Anymore._

Okay okay okay, he's running out of time. He's always been out of time, out of luck. It's like climbing class all over again. He squeezes his eyes shut and they burn with every memory he has of Josh and Ashley. There's a knot in his chest slowly making its way up his throat and it's going to suffocate him, he thinks. Can't even think. Can't.

Does it ever _stop_?

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.

He chooses, because he's not going to let Ashley die. And Josh—he won't ever be able to forget those screams. She runs into his arms, all the shaking, quivering, crying mess that he's feeling like on the inside right now, and he holds her close.

"Don't look, Ash," he tells her.

Yet he can't look away.

(He just murdered his best friend.)

 ** _x_**

"I thought we had a connection," she'll tell the police if she survives the night, until dawn.

Joshua and Samantha. Sam and Josh. He used to call her on the nights when it was too much to bear, when he felt like he couldn't breathe and the entire weight of Blackwood Mountain was crushing down on his chest. Maybe they'd cry or just sit in silence watching the rain pelt the windows and roll down the panes. They counted the drops until they fell asleep—sometimes the first goodnight in days, in his case. Or maybe they wouldn't talk about Hannah and Beth that night at all.

She always answered his two am texts, Facebook messages, knocks on her door, no matter what it was.

"I'll be here for you," she had said. "I'll always be here for you."

And she'd meant it.

So where did it all go wrong? When did the Josh she knew, had known all her life, disappear altogether? When did the kid who loves pranks turn into something else entirely? Was it all at once? Or had he been slowly slipping away little by little? Like peeling paint off of an old wall, a dripping of a leaky faucet. Right through her fingers and into the snow until there was nothing left but anger and revenge and _hunger_ and madness. Had she let it happen? Was there anymore, any _thing,_ she could have done?

He was her friend. Her goddamned _friend_ and she—she couldn't even save him from himself, let alone a wendigo stalking those fucking mines.

She should have gone back. She—

 ** _x_**

Can't believe what she's hearing right now.

It's Josh.

"Do you want to come up to the lodge? We'll have a party in Hannah and Beth's memory. It'll be a fucking riot, Samantha. It's okay, really, I am _okay_."

(But Hannah isn't dead— _technically_ —and Beth is nothing but bones and a head on a jacket worn by a monster, now.)

No no no. Do not say yes talk him out of it absolutely do _not confirm._

"Okay," she agrees, hesitant smile and all.

They're trying to work through this.

She thinks he's working through this.

 ** _x_**

Chris goes back to the shed, back for the maniac who put them all through hell. But Josh is still his best friend, and he needs help. He needs—god, Chris doesn't know what he needs, but he _does_ know that he is not leaving Josh Washington out there to be taken by a bloodthirsty wendigo.

Still, it is too little and too late, like always. There's nothing but an empty cold room, a broken chair, and a pool of freezing blood on the floor. The Stranger dies, because he will always die no matter what.

Josh Washington cannot, will not, be saved.

Chris lives or Chris loses his head. Although they basically feel the same, anyway.

 ** _x_**

"I thought we had a connection," Sam mumbles to the police, exhausted and mourning, a grand arsonist by far. She'd burned down the Washington mansion up on Blackwood Mountain, after all.

"What happened to Joshua Washington, Samantha?"

She should have stayed with him in the mines.

 ** _x_**

Sam smiles at the sight of Chris, all bundled up in his ridiculously heavy coat. He returns her grin. "I found something cool."

As he leads her off in direction of the shooting range, Sam decides that maybe this year nothing bad will happen, and that Josh might truly be on the track to being okay.


End file.
